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Overview

El Paso County is located on Colorado's Front Range, approximately 65 miles south of Denver. It is the second largest county in the state with a population slightly over 500,000; 460,000 live in the city of Colorado Springs. Over the past ten years it has experienced a significant growth rate (25 percent) in the suburban and rural areas of the county. It is a primarily Anglo community (75 percent), with Latino and African American populations each under 10 percent, and Asian/Pacific Islander and Native Americans both below 5 percent. The military is El Paso County's main source of industry, which includes an air force academy, an army fort, two air force bases, and NORAD. In recent years, the transient nature of the military industry has been offset by an influx of high tech companies, fueling much of the recent population growth.

The growing population of El Paso County in recent years has heightened pressure on city and county infrastructures to meet the challenges of domestic violence and child maltreatment (DV/CM). According to data collected in 2006, TESSA, the local domestic violence and sexual assault victim services agency, responded to over 43,000 client service calls and provided more than 6,000 nights of shelter for women and children. During the same year, the Colorado Springs Police Department and El Paso County Sheriff's Office responded to more than 20,000 domestic violence calls for service and made approximately 4,500 misdemeanor arrests. The El Paso County Department of Human Services received approximately 9,500 reports of child abuse and neglect, assigned 4,500 investigations, transferred 700 for services, and placed approximately 200 children.

Approach

The Greenbook Consortium identified a governance and operating system plan, implement and evaluate Greenbook recommendations. The Greenbook Executive Committee was the primary decision-making body and was comprised of representatives from TESSA, El Paso County Department of Human Services, El Paso County Combined Courts, Court Appointed Special Advocates, Colorado Springs Police Department's Domestic Violence Enhanced Service Response Team, and Family Representatives (adult survivors of domestic violence).

A key early decision was that sytems change in El Paso County would require a broad-based effort, reaching well beyond the primary partners in the Greenbook. A larger Greenbook Oversight Committee, comprised of other organizations who play a role in the local domestic violence response, was responsible for reporting successes, challenges and recommendations as to the direction of Greenbook implementation to the Executive Committee. The Executive and Oversight Committees agreed upon a "committee structure" in order to work through identified work initiatives. These committees included at least one representative from a Greenbook partner agency and a Family Representative to provide overall direction and process support.

A Project Director (Amber Ptak) was hired to guide the project and a Local Research Partner (Terry Schwartz) was contracted to work with the National Evaluation Team and conduct locally determined evaluation activities.

The El Paso County Greenbook Initiative aimed to provide proactive supports to families dealing with the co-occurence of domestic violence and child maltreatment so as to minimize their system involvement. The overall project goals set forth were as follows:

Systems are philosophically aligned with regard to the response to the co-occurence of domestic violence and child maltreatment

Decrease in re-victimization of individuals by any system

Systems can provide increased safety for abused adults and children

Increased trust of the system on the part of consumers

The strategies the consortium utilized to meet the goals were the following:

Contact

NEWSLETTER

This website was developed by Grant Number 90EV0439/01 from the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Family and Youth Services Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.